“I don’t know, except you were so excited about it last night,” Laurie said. “But I didn’t mean any offense. I was just surprised to see it in the news so quickly.”

“You and me both,” Jack said. “Maybe it was Lou.”

“I think that would surprise me even more than you,” Laurie said.

“Why me?” Jack said. He sounded hurt.

“Last year you leaked the plague story,” Laurie said.

“That was a completely different situation,” Jack said defensively. “That was to save people.”

“Well, don’t get mad,” Laurie said. To change the subject she asked: “What kind of cases do we have for today?”

“I didn’t look,” Jack admitted. “But the pile is small and I have a request. If possible, I’d like to have a paper day or really a research day.”

Laurie bent over and counted the autopsy folders. “Only ten cases; no problem,” she said. “I think I’ll only do one myself. Now that Franconi’s body is back, I’m even more interested to find out how it left here in the first place. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I believe it had to have been an inside job in some form or fashion.”

There was a splashing sound followed by loud cursing. Both Laurie and Jack looked over at Vinnie, who’d jumped up to a standing position. He’d spilled his coffee all over his desk and even onto his lap.

“Watch out for Vinnie,” Jack warned Laurie. “He’s again in a foul mood.”

“Are you all right, Vinnie?” Laurie called out.

“I’m okay,” Vinnie said. He walked stiff-legged over to the coffeepot to get some paper towels.

“I’m a little confused,” Jack said to Laurie. “Why does Franconi’s return make you more interested in his disappearance?”

“Mainly because of what you found during the autopsy,” Laurie said. “At first I thought that whoever stole the body had done it out of pure spite, like the killer wanted to deny the man a proper funeral, something like that. But now it seems that the body was taken to destroy the liver. That’s weird. Initially I thought that solving the riddle of how the body disappeared was simply a challenge. Now I think if I can figure out how the body disappeared, we might be able to find out who did it.”

“I’m beginning to understand what Lou said about feeling stupid about your ability to make associations,” Jack said. “With Franconi’s disappearance I always thought the ‘why’ was more important than the ‘how.’ You’re suggesting they are related.”

“Exactly,” Laurie said. “The ‘how’ will lead to the ‘who,’ and the ‘who’ will explain the ‘why.’”

“And you think someone who works here is involved,” Jack said.

“I’m afraid I do,” Laurie said. “I don’t see how they could have pulled it off without someone on the inside. But I still have no clue how it happened.”

After his call to Siegfried, Raymond’s brain had finally succumbed to the high levels of hypnotic medication circulating in his bloodstream from the two sleeping pills. He slept soundly through the remaining early hours. The next thing he was aware of was Darlene opening the curtains to let in the daylight. It was almost eight o’clock, the time he’d asked to be awakened.